On 11/17/2010 7:20 AM, Leslie Daigle wrote:
> Let me try this: I don't think I'm urging requirements for Glenn's report from
> his activities. I'm sure it's a fine report of his recommendations.
>> I'm urging requirements for the production and shape of the next turn of the
> crank on the RFC Editor model, as captured in an RFC.
Leslie,
Practically speaking, you (and pretty much everyone else) have actually cast
this exercise as an iterative guessing game for Glenn, with only guidance about
form and precious little about substance.
We task the guy with writing something and he talks to lots of people. 8 months
later, he produces the requested set of recommendations, within the requested
scope. He gets essentially no commentary on the substance of what he has
written except about its deficiencies in form or style.
The failure to provide any comment on the substance of the report (or its
overview) and the failure to provide any statements of concrete preference among
possible choices means that he AGAIN has no guidance of what will be acceptable
to you or anyone else.
He spent 8 months guessing what the community wanted. Different people all say
it didn't fly. Now he gets to guess again. Again with no real guidance, except
as to (a different) form.
Collaborative review provides feedback on substance as well as form. It places
the critic on the record for what their own preferences are, and possibly even
why, and better still if they explain why the current recommendations are not
acceptable.
Instead the dominant feedback Glenn has gotten is that folks won't provide
substantive feedback because he didn't show his work or he used too many words,
or he included discussion they think should be elsewhere, or... or... or...
Your original posting had 4 points. All were about form or process. The
closest you came to substance was the suggestion to include only what is
immediately essential and defer the rest. That's actually excellent advice,
except you do not tell him what you or I or Ole or Brian or... think is
essential. Call me a skeptic but I suspect we each have different views on this
and so now Glenn has another point to navigate and guess, without specific guidance.
As Brian notes, this effort does not have unbounded time available to it.
You say "I'm sure it's a fine report of his recommendations."
You mean you're not sure whether it is or it isn't?
d/
ps. The exchange you are now having with Andrew is, however, might turn into a
nice example of getting meaningful discussion on significant substance, but
again, your response to him was about process.
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net